A portable hand held electronic instrument such as a digital multimeter may be used in a wide variety of environments. Often, devices under test are located away from conventional table or bench surfaces on which an instrument might normally rest. Because it is often necessary for a technician to have both hands free while using the instrument, a suitable resting or hanging place for the instrument must be found near the circuit under test.
Accordingly, existing instruments have been provided with hinged stands connected to the back of an instrument, so that the instrument may be propped at an angle for viewing on a table top. One such stand also permits the instrument to be suspended by the stand from a variety of structures when a table surface is not available. As disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,940,204 to Nelson et al., a flexible instrument stand may be bent to a variety of shapes for propping the instrument at various angles, and for hanging the instrument on various objects such as a pipe, conduit, nail or stud. The described stand is a planar elastomeric sheet stiffened by a pair of heavy brass wires. These wires permit the stand to be bent into a variety of shapes, and help the stand to retain its shape, in the manner of a wire-reinforced rubber "GUMBY" doll.
While providing some versatility, this existing flexible stand is suitable for connection only to a limited variety of structures, with large pipes or thick walls being particularly difficult. Also, the stand must be straightened for compact stowage against the back of the instrument. It is difficult to avoid residual bends or ripples, which give the instrument an untidy, imprecise aesthetic appearance. Further, a bendable wire has a limited life, and is susceptible to breakage after repeated flexing, particularly at the sharper angles that may be needed to provide increased versatility of connections. When a reinforcing wire breaks, the stand may be rendered useless to support the instrument.
The embodiments disclosed herein overcome these limitations by providing a stand for removably securing a housing of an electrical instrument to another structure. The stand has a support arm connected to the housing, with a free end movable with respect to the housing. A grip element is connected to the arm and is movable over a range of positions along the arm. The grip element has a resilient spring portion biased toward a neutral position near the arm, and the spring portion is movable to a flexed position away from the arm. Thus, the instrument may be secured to a structure by biasing the spring portion against a portion of the structure, often by capturing part of the structure between the spring and the housing, or between the spring and the arm.